Poll finds Archuleta will win although Cook is more talented; both have equal popularity

A poll found that American Idol 7 finalists David Archuleta and David Cook have equal amounts of popularity among polled viewers, and they oddly think that Archuleta will win but Cook is more talented. Welcome to the minds of American Idol viewers.

E-Poll and Reuters surveyed “roughly 1,100 respondents ages 13 and over,” and Archuleta “was voted the likely winner by 40 percent,” Reuters reports. But “Archuleta tied rocker Cook as the one whom viewers wanted to win, with both getting 25 percent of the vote,” while Cook “topped Archuleta 31 percent to 27 percent when it came to proving his talent beyond just singing.”

In other results, 64 percent said Simon Cowell is their favorite judge, while 17 percent picked Paula Abdul and 17 percent picked Randy Jackson. The other two percent apparently couldn’t understand why their phones were talking to them and hung up.

Overall, the poll’s results, while somewhat schizophrenic, seem to illustrate that the David Achuleta party is over even though everyone has bought into the storyline that he’s the inevitable winner. He’s popular now only because he stood out earlier in the season, and while he sings well, let’s be honest: His shtick of humbleness and humility–as genuine and real as it may be–is is totally first-quarter 2008, and now makes him seem more like a beaten dog than someone who’s genuinely humbled. I’d say the only chance he has to win would be to reinvent himself, but predicting viewers’ votes is about as pointless as those results show call-in segments.

about Andy Dehnart

Andy Dehnart is a journalist who has covered reality television for more than 15 years and created reality blurred in 2000. A member of the Television Critics Association, his writing and criticism about television, culture, and media has appeared on NPR and in Playboy, Buzzfeed, and many other publications. Andy, 37, also directs the journalism program at Stetson University in Florida, where he teaches creative nonfiction and journalism. He has an M.F.A. in nonfiction writing and literature from Bennington College. More about reality blurred and Andy.

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